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<title>familiar faces, familiar fences by windbellows</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24349309">familiar faces, familiar fences</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/windbellows/pseuds/windbellows'>windbellows</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ficlet, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:21:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>807</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24349309</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/windbellows/pseuds/windbellows</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no ghost horse in the ranch ruins.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>familiar faces, familiar fences</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The thing is, Link <i>likes</i> horses. He likes the way they nuzzle against his palm when he feeds them apples, and he likes the thrill, the exhilaration of nudging them into a gallop - when they leap over a rock or a divide it feels like infinity, and he’s weightless. They go fast or slow or in-between and there’s nothing quite as steady as hooves against the dirt. He feels right, on a horse’s back. </p><p>He helps out at Stables sometimes - he’s eager to help and quick to learn, and quite a chatterbox to the horses, as the stablehands note with amusement. Link’s voice is still raspy from disuse he only half-remembers, and one hundred years of death mixed with sleep; horses were easier to talk to at first, when his words were coming out like rocks underfoot. They never responded, instead just gazing at him with unreadable eyes, which Link appreciated. He still does, and he still talks to horses. It’s the little habits. </p><p>On the road he tests his jokes on them and scribbles them down on paper he’s nicked from Purah. </p><p><i>Lake of the Horse God,</i> reads a sign near Highland Stable, a sign that Link misses completely. For all his habits, taking paths where no paths exist is by far the most normal. <i>Another fairy fountain,</i> he thinks dazedly. <i>Must be my lucky day.</i></p><p>He’s both right and wrong. Malanya twitches above him; she gives him a warning. </p><p><i>Oh, I jest, I jest…</i> she adds, but Link hears giggles without form in woods without name and he sees great beings soar overhead, and giant, horrid eyes staring back at him from atop an icy mountain, and he knows the horse god will kill him. Sand whispers down the sides of the cliffs surrounding the fountain and it hums a tune like the one that sings above Kakariko, or under the shelter of a windblown skeleton, but it’s different, just different enough that Link’s sharp ears catch it and holds onto it - he sees Kass later at another Stable, playing the song of an ancient hero’s horse. It’s one of Link’s favorites. </p><p>“Would you like to hear the song of the ancient hero?” the bard asks. Link shakes his head. He’d rather hear the horse one. The Stable’s rooftop decoration is familiar, now, and Link wonders if Malanya can see him through its false eyes. He waves, just to be sure. </p><p>Hyrule Field is dotted with ruins and it’s quiet, the murmur of grass against grass louder than the mechanical footsteps of guardians or Link, the only soul for miles. There’s ranch ruins up ahead. He had overheard of them from a conversation at Wetland Stable - often times in resting stops near the vast and silent field, topics at hand turn to ghosts and hauntings. “I saw it,” hissed an insect merchant, “Saw it with my own two eyes. A ghost horse, cantering around the pasture-“</p><p>His companion, a tall man Link vaguely recognized as someone who frequented the roads through Tabantha, had tipped his head back and laughed. “Quit talking so big. You couldn’t even get close enough to see the old <i>barn</i>, with the, you know, guardian and all. And the boko riders,” he added as an afterthought. “They were there too.”</p><p>The merchant’s face pinkened. “I <i>saw</i> it! By Hylia, I saw it.”</p><p>Link doesn’t particularly care about ghosts. He’s not scared of them, and he doesn’t mind them, and to be quite honest he’s probably seen more ghosts than most people claim to have seen themselves. Plenty of things go unseen in Hyrule and Link is privy to about half of them, and he doesn’t miss the faces in his reflection that aren’t behind him when he turns, or the voices at his shoulder under the husks of ruined houses. Figures glowing green, within machines of divine name. </p><p>But there is no ghost horse in the ranch ruins. Link arrives by nightfall, entering through the ruined arched structure, and the old pasture stands in a ring around him - there’s a guardian, too, like he had overheard, and he slaughters it with fervor even he doesn’t recognize. The stal riders get a taste of his sudden wrath as well, and their steeds ignore Link, and as he approaches them they don’t run. They don’t startle. He reaches out and touches one’s skull, flesh against bone, and it doesn’t startle. Gently, he tips his forehead against its snout. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says softly, and it nudges him in reply.</p><p>Malanya stares at him from the fountain as he searches for carrots. They’re abundant near fairy fountains, so surely they should be here; Link looks up to ask but her gaze is piercing like searing heat, and he decides not to say anything at all. </p><p><i>You hold horses quite dearly,</i> she remarks. He nods.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thank you for reading! well wishes to all.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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